Department of Defense Energy Initiatives: Background and Issues for Congress

Moshe Schwartz
Specialist in Defense Acquisition

Katherine Blakeley
Analyst in Foreign Affairs

Ronald O'Rourke
Specialist in Naval Affairs

The Department of Defense (DOD) spends billions of dollars per year on fuel, and is pursuing numerous initiatives for reducing its fuel needs and changing the mix of energy sources that it uses. DOD’s energy initiatives pose several potential oversight issues for Congress, and have been topics of discussion and debate at hearings on DOD’s proposed FY2013 budget.

By some accounts, DOD is the largest organizational user of petroleum in the world. Even so, DOD’s share of total U.S. energy consumption is fairly small. DOD is by far the largest U.S. government user of energy. The amount of money that DOD spends on petroleum-based fuels is large in absolute terms, but relatively small as a percentage of DOD’s overall budget. DOD’s fuel costs have increased substantially over the last decade, to about $17 billion in FY2011. Petroleum-based liquid fuels are by far DOD’s largest source of energy, accounting for approximately two-thirds of DOD energy consumption. When DOD’s fuel use is divided by service, the Air Force is the largest user; when divided by platform type, aircraft are the largest user.

According to DOD, currently about 75% of DOD’s energy use is operational energy and about 25% is installation energy. Operational energy is defined in law as “the energy required for training, moving, and sustaining military forces and weapons platforms for military operations.” Installation energy is not defined in law, but in practice refers to energy used at installations, including non-tactical vehicles, that does not fall under the definition of operational energy.

DOD’s reliance on fuel can lead to financial, operational, and strategic challenges and risks. Financial challenges and risks relate to the possibility of a longer-term trend of increasing costs for fuel, and to shorter-term volatility in fuel prices. Operational challenges and risks relate to: (1) the diversion of resources to the task of moving fuel to the battlefield; (2) the negative impact of fuel requirements on the mobility of U.S. forces and the combat effectiveness of U.S. equipment, and (3) the vulnerability of fuel supply lines to disruption. Strategic challenges and risks relate to getting fuel to the overseas operating area, and ensuring the global free flow of oil.

As part of its FY2013 budget submission, DOD has requested more than $1.4 billion for operational energy initiatives in FY2013. DOD’s office of Operational Energy Plans and Programs, headed by the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Operational Energy Plans and Programs (ASD (OEPP)), is responsible for developing DOD policy for operational energy and alternative fuels, and for coordinating operational energy efforts across the services.

Congress has been concerned with energy policy since the 1970s, and has passed legislation relating to federal government energy use, including DOD installation energy use. Congress has set specific energy-reduction targets for DOD installation energy, but not for operational energy.

Potential oversight issues for Congress regarding DOD’s energy initiatives include:

• DOD’s coordination of operational energy initiatives being pursued by the military services. 
• DOD’s efforts to gather reliable data and develop metrics for evaluating DOD’s energy initiatives. 
• DOD’s estimates of future fuel costs.
• DOD’s role in federal energy initiatives. 
• The Navy’s initiative to help jumpstart a domestic advanced biofuels industry. 
• The potential implications for DOD energy initiatives of shifts in U.S. military strategy.

Date of Report: December 10, 2012
Number of Pages: 70
Order Number: R42558
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Defense Contracting: A Compendium

This Compendium includes a wealth of reports on defense contracting and acquisition including topics such as competition in federal contracting; the Government Accountability Office (GAO) bid-protest process; contracting programs for minority-owned and other small businesses; the Berry Amendment requiring defense procurement to come from domestic sources; the Buy America Act; the specialty metal clause of the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS); Department of Defense food and military uniform procurement; defense surplus equipment disposal; and more.

The Department of Defense (DOD) has fielded a technologically advanced and superior military force and is supplied by a sophisticated acquisition system. This acquisition system is comprised of the management policy and processes that guide all DOD acquisition programs. However, at the same time, DOD has experienced significant problems managing the costs, schedule, and performance of this acquisition system, despite continued efforts to reform defense acquisition policies, personnel, and processes. In recent years, Congress has expressed increasing concerns with the management of the DOD acquisition system. Congressional concerns include the failure of DOD to develop effective acquisition strategies to field weapons systems and effectively provide oversight and accountability for service contracts and contractors.

Weapon acquisition programs such as the Future Combat System and the U.S. Coast Guard Deepwater Program have raised concerns in Congress because they have been managed by private-sector lead system integrators (LSIs), instead of being managed by DOD personnel. DOD has conceded in the past that the government has lacked the organic capability to manage these programs, and is now taking steps to transfer the role of the LSI to performance by defense acquisition workforce personnel.

Some observers, for example, point to an increased use of private security contractors to perform functions traditionally considered inherently governmental, and question whether using contractors to perform such functions reduces incentives to build governmental capacity to carry out these functions. Despite congressional efforts to expand court-martial jurisdiction and jurisdiction under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA), some contractors may still remain outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, both civil or military, for improper conduct in connection with U.S. counterinsurgency operations overseas.

Date of Report: August 7, 2012
Number of Pages: 178
Order Number: C-12011
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Detention of U.S. Persons as Enemy Belligerents

Jennifer K. Elsea
Legislative Attorney

The detainee provisions passed as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2012, P.L. 112-81, affirm that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), P.L. 107-40, in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, authorizes the detention of persons captured in connection with hostilities. The act provides for the first time a statutory definition of covered persons whose detention is authorized pursuant to the AUMF. During debate of the provision, significant attention focused on the applicability of this detention authority to U.S. citizens and other persons within the United States. The Senate adopted an amendment to clarify that the provision was not intended to affect any existing law or authorities relating to the detention of U.S. citizens or lawful resident aliens, or any other persons captured or arrested in the United States. This report analyzes the existing law and authority to detain U.S. persons, including American citizens and resident aliens, as well as other persons within the United States who are suspected of being members, agents, or associates of Al Qaeda or possibly other terrorist organizations as “enemy combatants.”

The Supreme Court in 2004 affirmed the President’s power to detain “enemy combatants,” including those who are U.S. citizens, as part of the necessary force authorized by Congress after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, a plurality held that a U.S. citizen allegedly captured during combat in Afghanistan and incarcerated at a Navy brig in South Carolina is entitled to notice and an opportunity to be heard by a neutral decision maker regarding the government’s reasons for detaining him. On the same day, the Court in Rumsfeld v. Padilla overturned a lower court’s grant of habeas corpus to another U.S. citizen in military custody in South Carolina on jurisdictional grounds, leaving undecided whether the authority to detain also applies to U.S. citizens arrested in the United States by civilian authorities. Lower courts that have addressed the issue of wartime detention within the United States have reached conflicting conclusions. While the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ultimately confirmed the detention authority in principle in two separate cases (one of which was subsequently vacated), the government avoided taking the argument to the Supreme Court by indicting the accused detainees for federal crimes, making their habeas appeals moot and leaving the law generally unsettled. Recently, a federal judge enjoined the detention of persons on the basis of providing support to or associating with belligerent parties under one prong of the definition enacted as Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2012, P.L. 112-81 (Hedges v. Obama). The injunction has been stayed pending the government’s appeal.

This report provides a background to the legal issues presented, followed by a brief introduction to the law of war pertinent to the detention of different categories of individuals. An overview of U.S. practice during wartime to detain persons deemed dangerous to the national security is presented. The report concludes by discussing Congress’s role in prescribing rules for wartime detention as well as legislative proposals in the 112th Congress to address the detention of U.S. persons (H.R. 4310, H.R. 4388, H.R. 3676, H.R. 3785, H.R. 3702, S. 2003, H.R. 4092, H.R. 4192, S. 2175, S. 3254).


Date of Report: December 4, 2012
Number of Pages: 57
Order Number: R42337
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Navy Ship Names: Background for Congress

Ronald O'Rourke
Specialist in Naval Affairs

On July 13, 2012, the Navy submitted to Congress a 73-page report on the Navy’s policies and practices for naming ships. The report was submitted in response to Section 1014 of the FY2012 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 1540/P.L. 112-81 of December 31, 2011). Names for Navy ships traditionally have been chosen and announced by the Secretary of the Navy, under the direction of the President and in accordance with rules prescribed by Congress. Rules for giving certain types of names to certain types of Navy ships have evolved over time. There have been exceptions to the Navy’s ship-naming rules, particularly for the purpose of naming a ship for a person when the rule for that type of ship would have called for it to be named for something else. Some observers in recent years have perceived a breakdown in, or corruption of, the rules for naming Navy ships. The July 2012 Navy report to Congress states: “Current ship naming policies and practices fall well within the historic spectrum of policies and practices for naming vessels of the Navy, and are altogether consistent with ship naming customs and traditions.”

For ship types now being procured for the Navy, or recently procured for the Navy, naming rules can be summarized as follows:

• Aircraft carriers are generally named for past U.S. presidents. Of the last 13, 10 were named for past U.S. presidents, and two for Members of Congress. 
• Virginia (SSN-774) class attack submarines are being named for states. 
• Destroyers are named for deceased members of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, including Secretaries of the Navy. 
• Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs) are being named for regionally important U.S. cities and communities. 
• Amphibious assault ships are being named for important battles in which U.S. Marines played a prominent part, and for famous earlier U.S. Navy ships that were not named for battles. 
• San Antonio (LPD-17) class amphibious ships are being named for major U.S. cities and communities, and cities and communities attacked on September 11, 2001. 
• Lewis and Clark (TAKE-1) class cargo and ammunition ships were named for famous American explorers, trailblazers, and pioneers. 
• Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) ships/Afloat Forward Staging Bases (AFSBs) are being named for famous names or places of historical significance to U.S. Marines. 

The Navy historically has only rarely named ships for living persons. Since 1973, at least 14 U.S. military ships have been named for persons who were living at the time the name was announced. Members of the public are sometimes interested in having Navy ships named for their own states or cities, for older U.S. Navy ships (particularly those on which they or their relatives served), for battles in which they or their relatives participated, or for people they admire.

Congress has long maintained an interest in how Navy ships are named, and has influenced the naming of certain Navy ships. The Navy suggests that congressional offices wishing to express support for proposals to name a Navy ship for a specific person, place, or thing contact the office of the Secretary of the Navy to make their support known. Congress may also pass legislation relating to ship names. Measures passed by Congress in recent years regarding Navy ship names have all been sense-of-the-Congress provisions.


Date of Report: November 19, 2012
Number of Pages: 31
Order Number: RS22478
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Veterans’ Benefits: Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 (P.L. 112-154)

Christine Scott, Coordinator
Specialist in Social Policy

Congress has in the past enacted legislation providing authority for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to treat certain veterans for specific medical conditions resulting from their exposure to certain toxic substances or environmental hazards while on active military duty.

In the 1980s, officials at Camp Lejeune became aware of the presence of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in drinking water samples. Camp Lejeune was placed on the National Priorities List by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1989, and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry continues to monitor samples from the water table.

The Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 (H.R. 1627, P.L. 112-154, enacted on August 6, 2012) provides authority for the VA to provide medical services for 15 specific illnesses to certain veterans as well as their eligible family members, who were stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, from January 1, 1957, to December 31, 1987.

In addition to providing the VA authority to provide medical services associated with these specific illnesses to veterans and their families stationed at Camp Lejeune during this time period, P.L. 112-154 makes a number of changes to other VA programs, including housing and other benefit programs. Some of these changes affect VA administration and expand congressional oversight of the VA through increased reporting to Congress, while other changes made by P.L. 112-154 would impact the larger population of veterans. That is, the changes would impact all veterans utilizing these programs, not just veterans stationed at Camp Lejeune during the above specified period.

This report provides information on the various provisions of P.L. 112-154 by program, benefit, or topic, rather than by each legislative provision. However, for each change in a program, benefit, etc., the section number of P.L. 112-154 is provided.


Date of Report: November 5, 2012
Number of Pages: 29
Order Number: R42810
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